The Worldly Librarian

IFLA moves 2010 conference from Australia to Sweden

worldlylibrarian — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:40:20 +0000

IFLA recently announced that their 2010 annual conference is moving from Brisbane, Australia to Goteborg, Sweden.

The current economic crisis, and resulting fears that the Australian conference will lose money, were given as reasons for this change.

There has been some complaints about this decision, particularly on
the International Library and Information Group message boards, with concerns that IFLA may be percieved as being “Euro-centric”, and this was a good opportunity for a conference in the southern hempisphere.
As for myself, Sweden is much easier to reach from Canada than Australia is, so if nothing else it increases the chance that I will be able to attend next year…

ALA International Relations Officer on Facebook

worldlylibrarian — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:51:00 +0000

Delin Guerra, the International Relations Officer for the American Librarian Association, has a Facebook page and Twitter link. Check it out!

Libraries During Wartime

worldlylibrarian — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:46:07 +0000

Here are my powerpoint slides and list of references (pdf) for my presentation on Libraries During Wartime at the Canadian Library Association Conference (May 31st, 2009). The session went fairly well, if I say so myself, and there were around forty people in attendance.

Worldly Librarian at CLA conference

worldlylibrarian — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:37:23 +0000

I will be attending the Canadian Library Association conference in Montreal this weekend, where I will be giving a presentation on Libraries and War. The presentation will take place Sunday, May 31st, at 10:30 (room TBA). Hope to see some of you there! I will post my presentation and bibliography on this site afterwards.

Also, I am looking forward to hearing a presentation titled “Libraries Across Cultures: Post-Tsunami Library Projects in Sri Lanka and Indonesia”, taking place on Saturday at 2:30. I hope to blog about it afterwards.

New blog on issues of digital stewardship

worldlylibrarian — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:20:07 +0000

Folks may want to check out the digital stewardship now blog, which covers issues of digital stewardship from a decidedly international standpoint. It is motivated by the UNESCO charter on preserving digital heritage.

I find this topic quite interesting, as it touches on my interests in the effect of war on libraries. Giving the same attention and protection to library documents as one gives to other forms of cultural heritage (museums, buildings, etc.) during times of conflict is essential. And, if a worse case scenario results and a collection is destroyed, at least an archived, digitized copy may be kept at something like the World Digital Library.

ICDL 2010 Conference Announced

worldlylibrarian — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:20:21 +0000

Information on the 2010 International Conference on Digital Libraries was recently circulated. Below is the news release and call for submissions from Debal C. Kar, the Organising Secretary of ICDL 2010:

After the overwhelming success of ICDL 2004 and ICDL 2006 which were organized by TERI, New Delhi, it was felt that such an event could be an extremely useful tool to bridge the digital divide that exists in this part of the world. It was able to create awareness and enthusiasm among the community.

Keeping this in mind TERI is planning to organize the 3rd conference in this series, ICDL 2010, during 23-26 February 2010. The conference will also aim at further strengthen the academic collaboration and strategic alliance in development of DL in the world. Theme of the conference is Digital Libraries: Shaping the Information Paradigm?.

This conference is expected to be a major forum focusing on digital libraries and related technologies and issues. The areas of digital library and knowledge management are still nascent in the developing countries but with great potentiality for development. This conference would, therefore, facilitate exchange of ideas and help bridge the knowledge gap in these areas and sustain the knowledge thus gained. It is expected to become a platform to bring together a galaxy of experts, researchers, academics, students, and others.

Taking into account your expertise and interest in this field, we would like to invite you to speak at this conference. Participants will greatly benefit from your long experience. We would also be grateful if you could let us know the topic of your presentation.

An urgent and favourable response is solicited.

Debal C. Kar
Organising Secretary, ICDL 2010

TERI
Darbari Seth Block
India Habitat Place, Lodhi Road
New Delhi – 110 003, India
Tel. (+91 11) 2468 2100 / 2468 2111 Extn 2724
Fax (+91 11) 2468 2144 / 2468 2145
E-mail <dckar@teri.res. in>
Web: www.teriin.org

Taiwan’s international library connections

worldlylibrarian — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:15:53 +0000

Taiwan is continuing to develop international library connections as a way of promoting their culture and making ancient Chinese manuscripts more widely available.

The latest initiative involves Taiwan’s National Central Library signing an agreement with the National Library of Latvia to create indexes and bibliographies of the Chinese documents.

Taiwan Collection Centres have been set up in other countries such as Mongolia, Vietnam, and the Netherlands, while the National Library has also worked with the Library of Congress to digitize Chinese items in their collection.

Source: Lexis-Nexis/Taiwan Central News Agency

Iraq may return archvies to Kuwait

worldlylibrarian — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:50:40 +0000

The Kuwait News Agency is reporting that a number of items reportedly stolen from the Kuwati archives during the Gulf War may be returned. The material, consisting of 4,500 video tapes and cassettes from the archives of the Kuwaiti Information Ministry, were taken by Iraq during the 1990 invasion.

Iraq has also pledged to return any other similar material that
may have been looted during the occupation.

(Source: Kuwait News Agency, March 4 2009)

Talk on Extremism and the Destruction of Libraries

worldlylibrarian — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:13:12 +0000

If you’re in the UK, and a member of CILIP, you may want to go hear Rebecca Knuth from the University of Hawaii talk about extremist groups and their targeting of libraries. She is the author of several books on this topic, including Burning Books and Leveling Libraries: Extremist Violence and Cultural Destruction, which I have read as part of my own research. Very interesting stuff.

This ILIG Informal will take place on Wednesday 8th April 2009, at 1800 – 1945 in Charter Suite East, CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE. RSVP to a.m.tyler@btinterne t.com By April 7.

Ancient African manuscripts have new library home

worldlylibrarian — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:08:24 +0000

As previously reported, the South African government has been working with the government of Mali to build a library to house more than 30,000 historic manuscripts. These are unique and ancient documents from Africa’s history, dating back to pre-Islamic times.

I can now report that the new library and archives building has been completed. The design of the building was influenced by the local adobe architecture of Timbuktu, a city that was once a key Islamic spiritual centre in the 15th and 16th centuries, and where the historic documents were hidden by families for centuries.

Other governments are also involved in this project, including the United States, Libya, and others. More info in the New York Times…

Source: Africa News